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Saturday, 20 February 2016

WORLD SOCIAL JUSTICE DAY – 20 FEBRUARY

In February
2007, the United Nations General Assembly declared 20 February “World Social Justice Day”. The concept
of social justice can be traced to ancient religions and philosophies East and
West – Hinduism to Islam and Christianity, Marx and Gandhi. Arising from the
Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment liberal philosophy, Harvard University
philosopher John Rawls who characterized the modern concept of social justice
as: "Each
person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of
society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the
loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by
others." (Theory of Justice, 1971).

While there are
those who maintain that humanity is better off today in terms of social justice
than when Plato addressed the issue almost 2,500 years ago, certainly better
off than when Marx dealt with it in the 19th century or Mahatma Gandhi
addressed it in the mid-20th century, there is increasing empirical
evidence that society is becoming polarized socially and geographically.
Despite decolonization, neo-colonization in a variety of forms under economic
hegemony of multinationals persists. Despite reducing poverty since 1995 from
about 33 million to about 20 million, the idea that about 100 people own more
wealth than half of the planet’s population is hardly encouraging for social
justice.

Urging all
members to promote social justice in accordance with the goals of the World
Summit for Social Development of March 1995, the UN took the symbolic step of
trying to address the most serious problems including:

1. Poverty eradication; - poverty has decreased
largely because of the rise of Asia, but it has increased in the developed
countries since 1995.

2. Unemployment and decent work - real unemployment is
double the official numbers because of people discourage to look for work and the
number of part time and and seasonal work has risen since 1995

3. Gender equity - women’s labor participation has
risen in most countries while income inequality remains a problem as does the “glass
ceiling”. While gender equality improved very modestly for professional upper middle
class women, it has declined for the vast majority at the bottom of the
socioeconomic ladder along with declining living standards for all workers
since the “great recession” of 2008.

4. Access to social well-being – this is especially
problematic for all minorities across developed countries, but more so in the
US where institutionalized racism is even more pronounced as declining living
standards impact first the lives of blacks and Hispanics.

5. Justice for all – no one would argue with any empirical
data to prove it that there is justice for all. There is certainly justice for
all according to their socioeconomic and ethnic-racial background.

Although there are many conservatives and ultra-right
wing elements in the US and around the world that believe social justice is
just another way of promoting Communism, world leaders met under the UN
umbrella in March 1995 to address social justice problems. At the time, the New
World Order was still evolving and markets were expanding because of the former
Soviet’s Bloc’s integration into the capitalist world economy and China’s
emergence as a global economic power. In the middle of the decade there was enthusiasm
about the triumph of capitalism over Communism and governments, bourgeois politicians,
journalists and academics were singing the praises of the market economy that
promised to eradicate all social ills and create a mythical “Shangri La” world
across the planet. That was 21 years ago and since then social justice has
lessened considerably if we examine the record by the numbers in each of the
domain that the UN listed as needing progress.

The neoliberal
policies that the developed countries have been pursuing and promoting across
the globe are a catalyst to the decline of social justice along with the
US-NATO military-solution foreign policy that has created massive drain on
civilian economies, accounts for increasingly authoritarian domestic policies
and destabilizes parts of the world that in turn destabilize the West by
engaging in unconventional warfare – uprisings and terrorism – combined with
massive migrant flows.

Analyzing the
progress of social justice in the US and Europe in the last two decades one is
struck by: Sharp decline in middle class living standards; 2. Higher unemployment,
especially youth unemployment; 3. Demise of working class rights, especially
collective bargaining challenged both in the US and many EU countries; 4. Social
welfare programs erosion and a corresponding sharp rise in corporate welfare along
with massive tax breaks to the degree that the largest multinationals pay no
taxes; 5. Rise in poverty partly because of rising personal debt, declining
incomes and wider income gaps between the poor and rich; 6. Rise in racism and
xenophobia across the EU and US as the masses are accepting ultra-right wing
and conservative arguments that the fault for society’s ills rest with the
minorities, already in the country or recent arrivals.

While it is
great for the UN to at least have a special day set aside for social justice,
the UN is utterly helpless because its most powerful members and the world’s
G-20 (richest nations account for 80% of the wealth) resist any commitment to
social justice because it would erode the neoliberal policies intended to
strengthen the top 10 percent for whose benefit the political economy exists.
When right-wing political supporter and billionaire Charles Koch agrees with
Sanders that there is a rigged political economy based on “cronyism and inequality”
what is left to say by a critic from the progressive camp? http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/02/19/charles-koch-says-he-agrees-bernie-sanders-one-issue/80611140/

Besides corporate
welfare system that concentrates wealth at the very top of the socioeconomic
pyramid, the US as the world’s most powerful military power continues to
subsidize a parasitic defense sector that erodes the political economy and
along with it social justice. The signal the US sends to the world politically is
hardly encouraging about social justice, According to the OECD the US ranks 27th
out of 31 countries, difficult to explain considering it preaches social
justice to the rest of the world. There is something seriously wrong when the
US ranks slightly above Turkey that has a horrible human rights record,
according to the State Department.

When the US
condemns Turkey for its lack of social justice but ranks at the same level as
Turkey, the only way to rationalize the hypocrisy is to invoke “American
Exceptionalism”. Apologists of the US as a leader in democracy, a country that
is already well on its way to embracing many aspects of a police state,
especially in the domain of surveillance as the dispute with Apple Phone
indicates, insist that criteria that it applies to the rest of the world does
not apply to the US because it has a special mandate from Divine Providence. In
short, the US can continue down the road of a police state because of Pax
Americana and its special role in the community of nations. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/27/social-justice_n_1035363.html

In the 2016 presidential campaign, no
candidate other than Sanders has touched on social justice. No media outlet, mainstream
think tank or academics hired to analyze socioeconomic and political issues for
the mass media discuss social justice. This is because it means addressing the
issue of corporate welfare and a tax structure that favors millionaires. Social
justice entails fixing the archaic infrastructure – everything from water
plants and pipes leaking lead into drinking water to bridges and schools - instead
of pouring money into defense to allegedly fight terrorism when all evidence
points to the US indirectly supporting the jihadists through third parties –
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, etc. Social justice means accepting
responsibility for causing chaos in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt
among some of the countries where Western intervention has brought instability
and resulted in mass migration and absence of social justice.

While the
concern of people across the world is a better life for themselves and their
children, governments have yielded to corporate hegemonic influence on policy
because multinational corporations subsidized by the state enjoy policy influence
on all fronts. For the US strengthening
the defense sector so it can remain the world’s policeman and plan for more
interventions is about the only issue concerning the media and all presidential
candidates, with Sanders addressing economic inequality. Even though public
opinion polls among all voters indicate very clearly that living standards
matter in their lives, the media, politicians and well-paid analysts continue
to promote terrorism and militarism as top priorities. The mind of the public
is constantly bombarded with fear of a foreign enemy when the enemy is the tiny
domestic socioeconomic elite that exert influence over policy.

Although the US
ranks very low on social justice, things are hardly better in Europe. Social justice
took a downward turn after the “great recession” of 2008 for all countries in
the developed world, and a very sharp downturn for the periphery nations of the
EU after 2010. The changing of the integration model from inter-dependence to a
patron-cline model has entailed a rise in unemployment, underemployment, poverty
and lower living standards for workers and the middle class for Italy, Spain,
Ireland, Portugal, and especially Greece. Austerity policies have concentrated
wealth within the core of northwest Europe, draining capital from the rest.
This has resulted in political polarization with people looking to neo-Nazi and
neo-Fascist groups or to left wing parties for solutions that the bankrupt parliamentary
system is not providing.

Social justice
cannot take place under the existing neoliberal political economy that works to
diminish it. Nor is it realistic to expect all capitalist countries, as different
as they are in their history and unique traditions, to model themselves after
Norway that is about as close to the UN social justice goals as any nation can
be. It is unrealistic to expect the political
and social elites responsible for the absence of social justice to deliver the
UN goals on this matter. Only grass roots movements intended to undertake
systemic change can make a difference. If people expect social justice to be
handed to them by the same people that are depriving it, they are delusional
and things will only become much worse.

"A
gripping, passion-filled, and suspenseful tale of love, betrayal,
political and religious intrigue, this novel entices the reader’s
senses and intellect beyond conventions. Slaves to Gods and Demons
takes the reader through a roller coaster enthralling journey of
personal trials and triumphs of a family emerging vanquished and
destitute after World War II.

Narrated by a young boy, Morfeos, modeled after the Greco-Roman pagan
deity of sleep and dreams, the book reveals the soul of a people trying
to ascertain and assert their identity while rebuilding their lives and
recapturing the glory of a lost civilization.

Seeking liberation from restraints of time, social conventions, and
binding traditions, the deity of dreams provides the conformist and the
free-spirited characters in the novel with venues for redemption that
are mere paths toward illusions. Exploring the complexities of human
relationships shaped by priest and politician alike, the novel rests on
the central theme that life is invariably a series of illusions, some
of which are euphoric, most horrifying, all an integral part of daily
existence.

Striving for purpose amid life’s absurdities after the destruction of
western civilization in two global wars, the characters in Slaves to
Gods and Demons struggle between holding on to the glory and grandeur of
a pagan legacy and the Christian present shaped by contemporary
secular events in Western Civilization."